Detection of Polar Mesospheric Clouds Utilizing Himawari‐8/AHI Full‐Disk Images

• Published in: Earth and space science (Hoboken, N.J.) Vol. 9; no. 1
• Main Authors: Tsuda, T. T., Hozumi, Y., Kawaura, K., Tatsuzawa, K., Ando, Y., Hosokawa, K., Suzuki, H., Murata, K. T., Nakamura, T., Yue, J., Nielsen, K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-01-2022; American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Subjects: Clouds; Ice; Meteorological satellites; Satellites; Standard deviation; Northern Hemisphere; Southern Hemisphere
• ISSN: 2333-5084; 2333-5084
• DOI: 10.1029/2021EA002076

With the objective of advancing the polar mesospheric cloud (PMC) detection capability by the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) onboard the Japanese geostationary‐Earth‐orbit (GEO) meteorological satellite Himawari‐8, a novel two‐step PMC detection technique applied to the Himawari‐8/AHI full‐disk images has been developed. The two‐step approach is dividing the PMC detection into stronger (the first step) and weaker (the second step) signals and enhances the detection capability while significantly decreasing the false PMC detections. The improved PMC sensitivity by Himawari‐8/AHI is comparable with the Cloud Imaging and Particle Size (CIPS) onboard the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite. With this encouraging result, PMC observations from Himawari‐8/AHI provide an additional extensive data set to the aeronomy and space science community.
Key Points
A PMC detection method has been developed for application to the Himawari‐8/AHI full‐disk images
The detected PMC data from the Himawari‐8/AHI are well consistent with those from the AIM/CIPS
The new PMC data set from Himawari‐8/AHI would be of benefit for scientific PMC research in the future